Um, your underwear fits your 6 year old son comfortably? Would a wolf-whistle or a ‘Wooooo!’ be out of line?
Go to goodwill and buy him a silk shirt, felt hat, etc. Whatever texture the stuff he is taking from you happens to be buy something similar but masculine or gender neutral if possible. Give it to him and then leave your things where they have always been. If he ignores what you have given him and continues to take your things more than likely he isn’t so much interested in the texture as he is in the fact that your clothes are feminine. If he doesn’t touch your stuff again it is probably a texture thing. No matter what though make sure he knows that you love him but that stealing is wrong.
This would at least give you a warning ahead of time that he might become a transvestite someday and you don’t have to be shocked by walking in on him wearing a bra and panties singing Donna Summers songs into his hairbrush when he is sixteen. It could also mean nothing at all, but it would be nice to know about the possibility now so you can figure out how you would best like to approach the situation later should it happen and help make things as easy on him as possible no matter what he decides about his sexuality.
Some people are building a pretty strong link between potential clothing experimentation by a 6 year old, and a future of emulating RuPaul.
I don’t remember doing anything similar myself, but I was under the impression that it’s not at all unusual for young boys to experiment with female clothes or makeup. And I don’t think you can predict future behavior based on natural childhood experimentation.
If you do catch your sixteen year old in bra and panties singing Donna Summers songs into his hairbrush, you’ve got a cause for expecting some future transvestite behavior. But a kindergartener wearing a skirt and heels because he saw mommy do it and wants to knwo what it’s like? It just seems like a totally different thing.
I don’t think so…if my kid takes a DVD out of my room and uses it in hers without permission, I wouldn’t call that stealing. And this is a delicate case- what’s the kid to do, say “mommy can I borrow your bra and panties”?
OK, I’ll relate a story.
The young man in this story was in his teens. He had been found to have some empty bottles of booze in his possession and then upon further search other items were found.
He had, in his room panties. Panties for wanking. This was my brother-in-law. (not any more) I liked him. His family assumed it was for the texture. But I found out that there were four panties. One from his mom, and one from each of his sisters. They either didn’t or did not want to grok the meaning of that.
As to the OP, I think it’s harmless. A stage he is passing through.
Not to hijack this, but she told him not to take her clothes and he continued to do so. Even if you would count the times before that as borrowing, how is it not stealing after receiving specific instruction not to take them?
Completely aside from what it is that is being taken, it strikes me as someone who needs to learn respect for other peoples property. (I realize he’s six, that’s why it’s a good time to learn that respect)
Ya know, my kid does this too except out in the open. He just turned 7. He’ll go into my room and come out wearing heels and a bra and prance through the living room sing-songing “I’m a giiiirrrl. I’m a giiirrrl.”
He did this the other day in front of my friend and she looked at me and said “oh girl, you know he’s going to have a drawer full of manties* when he grows up.” I just said that’s fine, we’ll all march in the parade together. Hell, it’s not like the 3 year old wasn’t running around in a rainbow shirt that said “San Francisco!” across the front.
*man panties
I think we’re dealing with a different issue than typical theft when budding sexuality, sexual awareness, something like that, is involved, not typical bad seed theft. If my dad had a stack of Playboys in the closet and told me repeatedly not to sneak one out and take it in my room and wank it, I’m not a thief or bad kid for continually doing so, just an aroused or curious one.
But technically, yes, taking something without permission is theft. And yes, if he had a way to get panties of his own, he wouldn’t have to go that route.
And I also agree it may be an early interest in girls- I used to go into my neighbors daughters room at around that age and take her Barbies in the bathroom so I could take the clothes off and inspect the goods, but if caught with one it may look like I was playing with dolls.
I see your points Wee Bairn and while they make some sense, I disagree with you. They are interesting though. 
Well, FWIW, I use to have have a fascination for soft things when I was that age, but I never stole my mom’s clothes or anything like that. Either way, you have two issues here. The first issue is with the theft, that’s unacceptable and should be admonished.
The other issue is his interest. I think he’s too young to really have anything sexual attached to it, and since he’s already admitted he’s taken them, perhaps he’ll be honest enough to explain why he likes them. It’s quite possible that he just like’s the texture, in which case you can simply buy him a nice blanket or stuffed animal. Perhaps he admires you in someway. I don’t know enough about transvestitism or transexualism to say anything there, but that’s a possibility as well. Maybe it’s something else entirely.
So to that end, I really think you should talk to him about it, and I think making any decisions about without really trying to get at the root of it could possibly be far more damaging than letting it run it’s course. If it’s just the texture he likes, but you go buy him girl’s underwear, I’m not quite sure what effect that would have, but I can’t imagine it would be good.
I’ll vote for the tactile experiences.
My sister hated wearing tights of any kind as a kid. If my mom didn’t keep an eye on her while they were waiing for the bus, she’d turn around to see my sister had stuffed both arms into her little panty hose to try to super stretch them so they’d get off her freakin’ legs. She looked really bizarre when she did that.
So, to explain how much she hated them, she told me to try them on. I remember finding the tactile weirdness of them kind of cool. Like, they seemed to enhance or amplify the sense of touch in my legs. “Cool! SuperTouch Powers!”
We also like trying on all sorts of stuff, including making ourselves Santa beards by sticking cotton balls to our faces with Vaseline. How about, to avoid embarassing him, you take him shopping at a thrift shop for his own “Costume Box” so he can play dress-up whenever he likes. Hats, shoes, baggy-pants whatever. Then make sure he has some nice new pieces of lingerie too.
It could just be an intimacy issue unrelated to sexuality. He could be taking things because they are yours and he wants to have your things close to him. And the preference for underthings could just be because those are what are closest to you.
For a while we had the great pillow trade in our house. Everyone wanted Mom’s pillow. So I’d take my son’s pillow and he’d take mine. Then his pillow would be mine and end up with my daughter and I’d have hers, then my son would want “Mom’s pillow.” Both my kids will occationally sleep in my shirts - and I’ll sleep in my husband’s.
Ok, I have what I think is a pretty high squick threshold, but you guys have pushed me over the top with daylight showing below with the used underoo sniffing 6 year old scenario. That wasn’t what I meant to suggest at all. :smack:
I sure hope you don’t buy the kid squirrly girl satin jammies with hearts.
And for that matter, I hope you don’t foist them on any fem kids you know.
Why not?
Have you seen the Dateline expose on very young children who wish to be the other gender? One boy around six was given boys toys for Christmas and was absoultey miserable, wanting to play with his sisters dolls, and when the parents made the (albeit difficult) deicison to let him do girls things, he went from miserable depressed kid to cheerful extrovert.
Not traditonal, but I’d rather my kid be different and have some happiness that be miserable.
I simply can’t be the only Australian having a good laugh at this.
I was over at my uncle’s once, about ten years ago, for a party of some sort. I think it might have been Easter. His youngest daughter, who was about six or seven at the time, came down the stairs dolled up in high “Disney Princess” fashion. My uncle’s friend was there with his kids, one of which was a boy the same age as my uncle’s daughter. When the little boy saw my cousin, he threw a fit. Why? Because she had prettier shoes than he did.
why would Australians particularly find this funny?
I’d like to know too. Seems like a kinda jerkish thing to say, especially without explaining why.
I’m not laughing BTW.
Well, what I’m thinking, after having raised three kids, including one son, and having taught First Grade Sunday School for 15 years, is that Six is a Breakout Age, same as the Terrible Twos and the teen years. And I’ve seen Sixes, both mine and other peoples’, indulge in a spectrum of bizarre behaviors that, when you sit down and look at them collectively, all add up to “pushing the edge of the envelope vis-a-vis socially acceptable behavior”.
IOW, I’m not seeing gender or sexuality issues at all, or even insecurity “Linus needs a blankie” issues, but just an active, healthy Six who has found a way to rattle the bars on the adult world’s cage. He could just as well be stealing candy or cookies or change off the top of your dresser–it’s the illicitness of the “stealing” that IMO is driving this, with the added fillip that what he’s stealing is Girl Stuff, which makes it doubly forbidden.
Which is something that Sixes just do–they need to experiment to find out how far they can go.
What I’d do is, I’d stop making it an issue. Making it a “you’re stealing from me!!” issue is exactly what he wants. If he was taking the occasional nickel and dime off the top of your dresser, how cranked out of shape would you get?
He’ll get tired of it and move on to something else. If it really discommodes you that your underwear is missing, just go buy more underwear.